If you are looking to go Shiny hunting in Pokemon Legends Z-A, you will want to get your hands on the Shin Charm, and to do it you will need to complete Mable’s research, which includes reaching 1000 trainer battles. The charm is a reward that you get for completely rounding out the research that Mable gives you at the start of the journey.
There are 50 levels in the research, and most of the challenges in it are rather simple and mainly consist of catching a certain type of Pokemon. However, there is one challenge that a lot of players are stuck on, and that is reaching 1000 trainer battles.
Completing this challenge will take up hours; fortunately, there are ways of streamlining it and making the grid considerably faster.
So if you are looking to get your hands on all the Shiny Pokemon in Legends Z-A, then the guide below will help you out.
Best ways to complete 1000 Trainer Battles in Pokemon Legends Z-A
If you are going for a more casual playthrough, you will, on average, reach around 200-300 trainer battles by the end of the Legends Z-A narrative. So, as you can imagine, reaching 1000 battles will indeed be a daunting task.
Now, there are two ways in particular to speed up the process:
1) Farming in Restaurant Le Nah
This is a more straightforward strategy for reaching 1000 trainer battles. And all you will need to do is make your way to Restaurant Le Nah, talk to the NPC there, and for 3,000 Poke Dollars you will be able to battle 3 NPCs.
These trainers have pretty low-level Pokemon (not higher than level 30), and if you already have a good party going, then you will be able to steamroll all three in under three minutes. So it’s one minute per battle, and you will need to spam this tactic on loop for approximately 10-12 hours (if you have completed the game) to finally reach 1000 trainer battles.
While it seems like a very tedious and repetitive process, it’s also the most consistent one. Moreover, completing the battles will also net you some money on the side.
2) Farming in Z-A Royale
This strategy comes from X user @Anthony_0313, who talks about the best money farming method in Legends Z-A, which also includes the fastest way of having trainer battles. However, there is a little bit of set-up that is needed for this method to click:
A) Get a Level 100 Dragonite
The first thing you will need is a Level 100 Dragonite (the higher the level, the better the strategy works). Now you can catch a Dratini on the roof of Restaurant Le Nah in the southeast part of the map and then level it up from there.
Or if you are in the post-game, you can head over to Wild Zone 20 (unlocked after completing the main story), and you can catch a Dratini there.
You can also force spawn a Dragonite at the center of Wild Zone 20. Just go in and out of the area till the Dragonite spawns. One good thing about this is that the Dragonite ou catch here will be near level 64 and will be an Alpha variant, and will have three guaranteed perfect IVs. This will allow you to save up some resources for the process that comes after.
Once you get th Dragonite by catching or through evolution, you will need to raise its level to 100. You can do this by grinding battles or using EXP Candies.
B) Give the Dragonite the correct moves
Once you have taken Dragonite to level 100, the next thing you will need to give it is the correct set of moves. In this case, you are giving it the following:
- Fire Punch
- Extreme Speed
- Outrage
- Earthquake
Make sure you have the TM for them as you explore the map and visit the different Disc vendors.
Note: Do keep in mind that the moves given are there to counter the various Pokemon types. While these are generally the best in slot for this strat, you can use any other similar move in its place as long as you have a set of abilities that can counter every type of Pokemon.
C) Hyper Train your Dragonite
EV Training or Hyper Training your Dragonite will allow it to reach the highest numbers on the required stats. The first thing you will need to do is to get our hands on Bottle Caps, which you can obtain as a reward for completing the Z-A Royale and from completing specific Mable research challenges.
Once you have the Bottle Caps, make your way to the Justice Dojo and speak to the NPC who hyper trains Pokemon. Focus on HP, Attack, and Defense, as you will not be using any Special Attacks for this strat. So investing in them is just going to be a waste of bottlevaps.
D) Changing Dragonite’s nature to Adamant
If you have already gotten your hands on an Adamant Dragonite or Dratini, then you have already completed this step. However, if you haven’t, then you will need to change its nature by using the Adamant Mint, which can be found on a vendor in the Mint market, which is down an alleyway next to Wild Zone 3.
It will cost 20,000 Pokem Dollars, and will change the Dragonite’s nature to Adamant, where it gets a 20% boost to Attack but will receive a 20% debuff to its Special Attack.
E) EV train our Dragonite
EV training is a part of making the perfect Pokemon in Legends Z-A, which will allow you to crush your enemy in ranked PvP. Now, to EV train the Dragonite, you will first need to head over to the Rust Syndicate (make sure you have reached far enough in the story where you have beaten the entire syndicate).
Here, speak to the receptionist and pick the fresh start option to remove all existing EVs from your Dragonite completely.
For the next step, head over to a Pokemon Center and buy 25 HP Up Vitamins and 25 Protein Vitamins. Each purchase will cost 5,000 Poke Dollars, so make sure you have 2,50,000 Dollars with you.
Now invest all HP Ups and Proteins in our Dragonite. Each of these items will increase the EVs on your Pokemon by 10 when used. So you will want to use 25 of these on a Pokemon to raise the EV of a particular stat to 250. As 252 is the max EV stat, you can supplement it by using Health and Muscle Feather. Each feather raises the EV stat by 1.
F) Give your Dragonite a Normal Gem
The final thing that you will need to do for the setup is to make your Dragonite hold a Normal Gem, which will boost the power of a Normal Type move once. Now, to get the Gem, you will need to complete a Side Quest.
Head to Lumiose Museum, which is to the north of the map. Talk to the NPCs there who give out the quest of finding 12 Spewpa that are hiding in the museum. Locate them all and you will gain he following rewards:
- ₽3,000
- Spewpa
- Wise Glasses x1
- Normal Gem x3
G) Start the Z-A Royale
Once you have made the Dragonite hold the Normal Gem, the next thing you will need to do is to go to a Pokemon Center and use the bench there to turn it into nighttime. This begins the Z-A Roale, and your goal now will be to sneak up on the trainers and use the Extreme Speed move on them to get the advantage.
This will usually instantly knock out their first Pokemon, and you will be able to breeze through most encounters. The speed at which you complete the trainer battles now is ridiculously fast, and you will be able to complete up to 50 battles per Royale.
Moreover, this is also one of the best ways of farming money in Legends Z-A. So not only are you racking up wins and getting closer to the Shin Charm, you are also making a ridiculous amount of money (close to 200,000 Poke Coins) per run.
